a lipsmacking journey through life. Food, travel and lifestyle stories.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

food trail :Jigar Thanda

jigar thanda

I had heard of the term Brain freeze or ‘ice cream headache’
(scientific name- sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia ),the weird sensation
when you eat ice cream too fast and are struck with a numbing pain around the
forehead. Well seems ice creams can do more than just freeze your brain , it
can also cool your heart !! That is what the popular and indigenious drink of
Madurai the JIGAR THANDA proclaims.

I much prefer the cooling of the heart, and thus went on a
foodie trail in Madurai. Madurai is the birth place of the Jigar thanda . An
ice cream sundae made of cold milk, flavor of ice cream, indigeneous china
grass called kadal paasi and the juice of a medicinal root called sarsaparilla
syrup or nannari syrup.The original recipe was brought to Madurai by an ethnic
group called the saurashtra and was much popular amongst the Muslims. It is
still particularly favoured after a heavy meal of biryani for its digestive
properties, also during Ramzan month it sells like hot cakes. Actually hot
cakes might notsell as much as the Jigar Thanda. The drink might have been
brought to Madurai due to the muslim invasion but the round the year summer in
Madurai (Madurai is 9.58N latitude, barely above the equator)has made Jigar
thanda an irreplaceable and intrinsic part of the culture of the place.

Even though jigar thanda has an illustrious past , and is
still served in its original form across the city of Madurai, it is still open
to individual interpretations. New and innovative flavours crop up especially
during the blistering months of heat.

Now I have been in
Madurai for long enough to have had my share of interpretations of the famed
Jigar Thanda, I had had enough bad interpretations of the heart cooling drink
to leave me cold hearted. The hospital canteen or the hostel mess are not the
versions of jigar thanda I would recommend. One of the versions I had actually
had cold stodgy sabudana (sago ), cold milk, vanilla ice cream and strawberry
jam.I know substitution is the mother of most Indian inventions, but Jam and
over cooked sabudana is no way to treat a historical drink!!

So this week part of my foodie trail I decided to venture
into the heartland of the temple city.

I finally tasted my authentic jigar thanda, and I came back
pleased.

It had home made ice
cream, the kind made by churning thickened milk for hours. It tasted much like
kulfi ice-cream. It had thickened milk, the kind boiled for hours on slow
flame, until it turns from white to brown. The original kadal paasi, which was
a stiff jelly like consistency , cut in very small pieces. And a pink coloured
fluid, which I was informed is trhe famed Nannaari syrup. The vendor dexterously
layered the ingredients one on top of the other in a tall glass, gave the whole
thing a brisk shake and served it up with little fan fare. He then proceeded to
shake and stir many more of the same, and I realized the immense popularity of
the drink.

home made icecream

thickened milk,kadal paasi, and nannaari syrup

at work

It tasted a lot like a cross between kulfi and falooda. I
guess the falooda must have been the origin of the original jigar thanda. After
all the falooda is a Persian drink traditionally made by mixing rose syrup with vermicelli, basil(sabza/takmaria) seeds, jelly
pieces and tapioca pearls along with
either milk and ice cream.

The jigar thanda is an inexpensive way to cool down, it also
is a fitting example of Indian ethos. We learn from the outside world, we adapt
it to our tastes, we will always have some medicinal quality to our food items.
Jigar thanda is not just icecream , mixed with cold milk and jelly; It is a
drink which helps in digestion, cools the mind and heart, helps in
constipation, is an integral part of the local culture, and has deep rooted
sense of tradition.

About Me

There was a time when I was finicky about food, now I am fanatic about it! There isn't anthing I wouldn't try atleast once. Life is to be lived one glorious adventure at a time. I wear many hats. The compassionate doctor, the marathon movie watcher, , the moody philosopher and the adventurour foodie and wanderlust traveller.doctor by profession, a foodie by passion and a writer at heart.